Nelly : International Breaks Are A Killer

Ryan Nelsen has been speaking today on the impact that international weeks have on Blackburn. With many Rovers players on international duty whenever games are played, there is little chance for the squad to assemble and work on all things Blackburn upon return.

Players such as Roque Santa Cruz, Aaron Mokoena, Benni McCarthy (when he isn't arguing with the SFA), Brett Emerton, Vince Grella, Nelsen himself and Carlos Villanueva all have to leave Europe to play for their countries.

This, whilst always an honour to play for your country is detrimental to Rovers, who often have a Saturday game and many players aren't getting back till Friday lunch time.

Rovers will however, have to find a way to cope with this as Ince's boys have been finding their feet recently after some poor defensive displays early on in the season - which coincidently came after the last international break.

Ryan also went on to predict a few more ups and downs at Rovers this season - do we really have (or want) it any other way?!?!?

Ryan, speaking to Sky Sports said, "International breaks can absolutely kill squads. I think we had four senior players here one week.

"When you have four players training of course it is going to disrupt things. You can`t work on anything and if you get injuries it can ruin all the good work you have done.

"Then when you come back, players come back fatigued and tired and that is where teams with less internationals really benefit from the rest and work during the week."

"Last time, I did about 60 hours flying time and another 20 odd hours waiting around in airports, which is draining in the extreme.

"None of the players really trained together in the first few weeks of the season for a whole week, due to the international games.

"The other week was the first week of training I had since the season started. People were hitting panic buttons but we knew the quality we have got and it was just a case of fine-tuning things.

"The impact of so many international games was felt even more here because there was a new management team in and Paul wanted to work with the whole team defending, not just the back four.

"But he couldn`t, we just couldn`t, and it was only the other week we really were able to do that and you have seen the benefits. We all know what we have to do now so hopefully it won`t have such an affect on us."

"The season is so long and there are so many ups and downs, things happen that you have to work on.

"It is not as though we have put the defence to bed, we have to keep working.

'There will be two or three games in the season where we won`t score any goals and people will say 'oh no what is going on`?.

"As the season goes you go with the flows and you have to work on things continually."

Frank and honest as usual from the captain. Interesting reading and very insightful.

Will be interesting to see how we do after the break.

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